Sports matter. Their marquee events -- the Olympics, various world championships, most prominently the World Cup in soccer, the Super Bowl,the World Series, the UEFA Champions League Final, the NBA and NHL finals, the America's Cup, the four Slams in tennis and the four majors in golf to mention but a few -- have become global icons known to and loved by billions. But parallel to this globalized quality, sports also retain something deeply local. Thus, while the University of Texas Longhorns embody a quasi-religious entity in Austin and environs, they remain largely unknown beyond the confines of the United States. This "glocal" (Roland Robertson) quality of modern sports has important cultural and linguistic ramifications. Comparing the trends of the past two decades to parallel developments shaping modern sports cultures between 1860 and 1914, the session will highlight specific American cultural and linguistic developments to comparable phenomena in Europe. This session is part of the brand new SXsports programming at SXSW 2014.
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official listing on sxsw.comhttp://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP27457